Top Chef Recap

By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower

August 31, 2010

Does this gray fish taste bad? No, taste it!

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Overnight, the group realizes that they will need someone to take orders, so it’s time for Angelo to volunteer! Wink, wink. Remember when we talked about the group not trusting him before? All of a sudden, when they arrive at the ballpark, Angelo decides that he wasn’t thinking about himself enough, so he backs out of taking the orders. As you might imagine, this pisses everyone off. A lot.

Eventually, Angelo finally concedes that he did promise to do the orders for the group, and tries to find someone to help prepare his dish. Ed rather generously steps up. Also, you may remember that Ed slept with Angelo’s girlfriend once. Ha ha! We guess Ed owes him one.

Tom Colicchio brings in Adam Dunn, Matt Capps and Jon Lannan. These giant dudes are players for the Natinals, in case you didn’t know. Kelly tells us how cute they are, commenting that these guys are much cuter in person than on TV. (This phenomenon is real, as Kim can attest, having literally run into Peyton Manning once on an elevator.)

Soon we see that Amanda is having problems with her tuna. It has oxidized and is starting to turn gray. Angelo notes that he could have helped her, but he had to worry about himself. On the other side of things, we see Tiffany helping a couple of her fellow chefs and making suggestions. She is not going to beat someone because she let them serve bad food without telling them what she knows.




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Once the food service begins, the popular choice of the fans seems to be the meatballs and the crab cakes. Part of the reason for this, we think, is that these items are familiar to everyday diners. Foodies simply have more advanced palates. As for Adam Dunn, we’re not sure what his favorite is, but he says of Ed’s dish, “It feels like a caterpillar exploded in my mouth.” That’s not a good thing.

The judges arrive, and Rick Moonen comments that it takes some stones to make tuna tartare at a baseball stadium, but Eric Ripert says he just thinks it looks disgusting since it’s grey and oxidized. Tom says that Amanda’s vegetables are good, but Padma is making a face so it’s pretty clear that even if the flavor is good (as Amanda claims), this dish is in trouble.

Next up is Kelly’s crab cakes, which seem to be overly salty, but there are some compliments thrown around as well. Tiffany’s Italian sausage/meatball is very well received, although Ripert thinks it’s a little difficult to eat.

The judges universally agree that Ed’s shrimp and corn risotto fritters with jalapeno aioli is delicious, and apparently not the least bit caterpillar-like. Take that, Adam Dunn’s unrefined taste buds! We’re blaming you for Strasburg, too.

Kevin has placed some shoestring potatoes on top of his chicken skewer, and it also is pushed down too far on the stick, making it difficult to eat. The chicken is moist and tasty, though. Angelo’s dish (made collaboratively with Ed) is sweet glazed pork on the hot dog bun, which has nice heat, but is killed by the overly large roll. It’s almost as though Angelo is trying to hide the problems of the dish. Perhaps the baguette would have been better after all.


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